Tag: D&C 25

Come, Follow Me: Doctrine & Covenants 23-26

Section 23

Once the Church of Jesus Christ was organized, Joseph’s brothers Hyrum and Samuel, their father, together with Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Knight, were “anxious to know of the Lord what might be their respective duties, in relation to this work.”  Joseph’s history says, “I enquired of the Lord and received for them the following.”[1]

In section 23, the Lord speaks to each of these men in turn, offering blessings and warnings, prophecies and promises. Note especially the conditions on which the prophesied blessings depend. 

Oliver Cowdery pridefully withdrew from the church in 1838 and remained out for a decade before returning humbly. During that period he wrote defensively about his importance in the restoration. Afterward Oliver testified meekly of the Book of Mormon and of receiving the priesthood from ministering angels along with Joseph Smith.[2] When Oliver was aware of pride and made his calling known, the Lord opened his heart to preach the truth.  

For Hyrum, verse 3 fulfills the Lord’s promise to him in section 11. There the Lord told Hyrum Smith that if he would learn the word of the Lord, then his tongue would be loosed to preach it. Hyrum must have studied the scriptures in the year between the two revelations, since section 23 announces that his tongue is loosed. Hyrum preached powerfully ever after. Joseph’s father and brother Samuel also became effective missionaries and church leaders in response to this revelation. 

Joseph Knight had done so much for Joseph—provided money, paper for the Book of Mormon, food, transportation, and moral support. He was most comfortable behind the scenes. What section 23 commanded was more difficult for him: to join the church meant to preach the gospel. Father Knight wrote that he wrestled with the decision to be baptized but finally decided not to. A few weeks later, he and his wife chose to be baptized.

Section 24

Joseph had a rough month between the church’s spirit-filled June conference in Fayette, New York and this July 1830 revelation. He returned to his home in Pennsylvania and then visited the saints in nearby Colesville, New York. Reverend John Sherer, who was losing some of his Presbyterian followers to the restored gospel, stirred prejudice against Joseph. Sherer’s followers interrupted baptismal services and he finally kidnapped Emily Coburn in an attempt to prevent her baptism. 

When several who had been baptized, including Emma Smith, were to be confirmed, a constable arrested Joseph “on charge of being a disorderly person; of setting the country in an uproar by preaching the Book of Mormon.” The charges didn’t stick, but as soon as the court acquitted Joseph a constable from the neighboring county arrested him again and hauled him over the county line. All the antagonistic witnesses could offer was hearsay. Newel Knight embarrassed the prosecution with his testimony. Public opinion began to turn in Joseph’s favor. The court again acquitted him as his persecutors threatened to tar and feather him. The formerly hostile constable helped Joseph escape to Emma’s sister’s house, where Emma anxiously waited. 

She and Joseph finally returned to their Harmony, Pennsylvania home the next day. He returned to Colesville a few days later with Oliver Cowdery to confirm the new converts, only to be chased all night by the same enemies. “Shortly after we returned home,” Joseph wrote, referring to Sections 24 and 25, “we received the following commandments.”[1]

Section 24 is one of several revelations in which the Lord meets Joseph where he is.

Though he has become larger than life to many, Joseph, like Nephi, thought of himself as a sinner who needed redemption through the atonement of Jesus Christ. In Section 24 the Lord acknowledges both Joseph’s accomplishments and his sins, commanding him to sin no more. 

Section 24 addresses Joseph’s concern about finances and how to provide for his family. It does not promise wealth, only that Joseph will have sufficient if he attends to his calling: “thou shalt devote all thy service in Zion.” Because Joseph devotes all his service to the saints, the saints are responsible to see that his family’s needs are met.

Oliver too is encouraged to give his all to the kingdom. Perhaps hoping to escape further persecution, both of the church’s presiding elders are promised plenty of afflictions to endure. The Lord does, however, promise to smite anyone who uses violence against them. Those who use the law to persecute the prophet will find themselves cursed by the law. In sum, the two young apostles are now in the full time service of the Lord. He promises to look after them as they trust him and take up his cross and follow him, devoting their lives wholly to his service.

Section 25

In the summer of 1830, Emma Hale Smith was baptized near Colesville, New York as a group of angry neighbors objected. Before she could be confirmed, the raging crowd drove her and other saints into the Knight family’s home for refuge. Then a constable arrested Joseph for preaching the Book of Mormon. Emma awaited the outcome for a few days at her sister’s home, feeling that her “very heart strings would be broken with grief” as she witnessed her neighbors’ hostility toward her husband.[1]

It wasn’t only Emma’s confirmation that had been interrupted. Choosing to marry Joseph had disrupted the trajectory of Emma’s life. As with so many women who came of age in her time and place, Emma was raised to aspire to middle class respectability. Given her tumultuous married life thus far, she couldn’t help but be concerned about her financial future.

Then in section 24 the Lord essentially guaranteed Joseph and Emma a modest living if the saints would support them. They would have enough to enable him to devote his life to the church, but no guarantee of things of this world. All section 24 seemed to assure Emma was a life of hardship with a husband who belonged to the church. 

To that point, the Lord had only spoken to the men of the Church, though, like Emma,  the women of the Church—Lucy Mack Smith, Mary Whitmer, Polly Knight, and many others—were just as much its backbone and as vital as a heartbeat.

Then the Lord let Emma know that he could see through her eyes and gave her an opportunity to see through his.    

The earliest manuscript of section 25 begins more intimately than the more formal, published version. “Emma my daughter in Zion,” the Lord says, “A Revelation I give unto you concerning my will  Behold thy sins are for given thee & thou art an Elect Lady whom I have called.”[2] He reveals His will to this highly favored daughter, promising to preserve her life and her place in Zion if she will be faithful and virtuous. This was no hollow promise to a woman living in a time of high maternal mortality rates. Emma nearly died after giving birth to her first child.  

The Lord’s command that Emma “murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen,” is often assumed to refer to the Book of Mormon plates but there is no basis for that conclusion. There were many things Emma did not see, and the Book of Mormon plates may not have been among them. 

The revelation gives Emma a calling, or several actually. “The office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband . . . ” As this sentence suggests and one might expect, at times Emma felt as if she was in a tug-o-war with the Lord over Joseph. Still, she excelled at meekly comforting and consoling him. 

Emma, the Lord said, was called to be Joseph’s partner, his confidant, his strength; and he hers. The Lord commands her to go with Joseph when he goes, scribe for him when he has no other scribe (freeing Oliver Cowdery for other duties), and be ordained to expound scripture and exhort the church by the Spirit. Joseph is to lay hands on Emma to bestow the Holy Ghost, and she shall spend her time scribing and learning much in the process. She need not fear. Joseph will support her in this calling. That is his calling, and by doing it Joseph reveals whatever the Lord wills, according to the saints’ faith. 

Emma can see where all this is leading. “Lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better,” the Lord invites. Lay aside your telestial world aspirations and feed your celestial ones.  

The Lord also called Emma to select sacred hymns for the church.

He delights in the heartfelt song. Thus Emma may be encouraged and rejoice and cleave to her covenants.  Continue to be meek, the Lord commands her, and beware of pride. “Let thy soul delight in thy husband, and the glory which shall come upon him.” A crown of righteousness awaits Emma if she keeps these commandments continually.  

Emma was confirmed and compiled the church’s first two hymnals in response to section 25, but the revelation is significant far beyond those accomplishments. It addresses Emma’s deepest fears and fondest hopes. This is the only revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants addressed to a woman. It shows that the Lord knew his daughter. He knew she was meek but could be proud. He knew that part of her wanted to complain because she had not seen some of the marvelous things others had seen. He knew she could be tempted by the things of this world. He invited her to sacrifice them for infinitely more. He knew before she knew that she was capable of scribing for Joseph, of learning much, and of teaching the saints by the power of the Holy Ghost. He knew that these callings would cause Emma anxiety. He assured her that Joseph would support her. He knew that she needed Joseph. He knew that Joseph needed her, and he called her to comfort and sustain Joseph.      

Section 25 oriented Emma’s life.

Expecting twins, she forsook her unbelieving parents to obey its command to go with Joseph to Ohio, and she never saw them afterwards. A decade later Emma was elected by her sisters to preside over the Relief Society, which Joseph validated. He read the revelation to the sisters from the Doctrine and Covenants and said that Emma had been “orddain’d at the time, the Revelation was given to expound the scriptures to all; and to teach the female part of the community.” She was and sustained in her calling by her husband and her sister saints.[3]

A few weeks later Joseph was evading arrest on false charges. It was a depressing time of his life. There was tension between him and Emma over plural marriage, straining their relationship. Emma went to great lengths to visit Joseph in that situation. His journal entry says, “again she is here, even in the seventh trouble, undaunted, firm and unwavering, unchangeable, affectionate Emma.”[4]

 In September 1843, Joseph sealed on Emma’s head the “crown of righteousness” the Lord promised in section 25. Then, just days before his death in 1844, Joseph invited Emma to write her own blessing. She thought of Section 25 and penned her hopes that she would be able to obey its commands and receive its promised blessings.[5] She clung to her covenants through Abrahamic tests. Emma understandably could have, and perhaps sometimes did, consider herself in competition with the Lord and others for Joseph’s time and attention. Section 25 assured her that however that might be, she was the Lord’s highly favored daughter, that he expected more of her than she may have thought she could give, and that he would finally give her all she ultimately wanted.

Section 26

Joseph and the saints in southern New York endured a blast of persecution in the summer of 1830. The Knight family in Colesville were understandably anxious. Back home in the nearby but comparatively peaceful setting of Harmony, Pennsylvania, Joseph received a series of revelations including section 26. The Lord gave it to Joseph, Oliver Cowdery, and John Whitmer to teach them what to do until the conference scheduled for September in Fayette, New York.  

The revelation says simply that Joseph and his brethren are to devote their time to scripture study, preaching, confirming the saints in southern New York, and farming as needed until time for conference later in the summer. There he will direct them further.

The most significant, if understated, aspect of the revelation is the line, “all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith.” (D&C 26:2) The Lord had revealed this principle earlier, but that revelation is not canonized, so this is the first mention of common consent in the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph’s manuscript history says that before the Church was organized, the Lord commanded he and Oliver to ordain each other elders in the Church of Jesus Christ, and then ordain others, but only after they could gather all who had been baptized to get “their sanction,” and be “accepted by them as their teachers.”[1]

At that meeting the members of the church, the women and men accepted Joseph and Oliver as their leaders by a unanimous vote.[2] Though the word vote is used, common consent differs from a democratic election. In common consent, Church leaders put forward a proposal and ask for consent and dissent. Though consent is common, it is not taken for granted and dissent is to be respected. The presiding authority meets with a dissenting member to learn why they dissented and acts accordingly. In an unusual turn of events, Joseph Smith dissented in October 1843 at the proposal that Sidney Rigdon be sustained as his counselor in the First Presidency. Joseph’s dissent was overruled by the Church after a lengthy discussion.[3]

Newel Knight said section 26 provided “great consolation to the little band of Brethren and Sisters at Colesville after having been abandoned from time to time by the servants of God in consequence of the wicked who were constantly seeking to destroy the work of God from the earth.  It showed us that the Lord took cognizance of us and also that he knew the acts of the wicked. So we resolved to continue steadfast in the faith and were diligent in our prayers and assembling ourselves together, waiting with patience until we should have the pleasure of again seeing Brother Joseph and others of the Servants of the Lord who had become dear to us by the ties of the gospel, and of being confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ by the laying on of hands of the Apostles.”[4]

Section 23 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 38, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/44.

[2] Steven C. Harper, “Oliver Cowdery as Second Witness of Priesthood Restoration,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, ed. Alexander L. Baugh (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 73–89.

Section 24 notes

[1] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” p. 48, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/54.

Section 25 notes

[1] “Some of the Remarks of John S. Reed, Esq., as Delivered before the State Convention,” Times and Seasons 5 (I June 1844): 549-52.  Joseph Smith, Manuscript History 1838-1856, May 17, 1844, Book F-1, page. 48.

[2] “Revelation, July 1830–C [D&C 25],” p. 34, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-july-1830-c-dc-25/1.

[3] “Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book,” p. 8, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/5.

[4] Journal, December 1841–December 1842,” p. 164, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-december-1841-december-1842/41. See Job 5:19

[5] Carol Cornwall Madsen, “The ‘Elect Lady’ Revelation: The Historical and Doctrinal Context of Doctrine & Covenants 25,” in The HeavensAre Open (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1993): 211-18.

Section 26 notes

[1] “History, circa June–October 1839 [Draft 1],” p. [8], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-june-october-1839-draft-1/8.

[2] “History, circa June–October 1839 [Draft 1],” p. [9], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-june-october-1839-draft-1/9.

[3] “History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 [1 July 1843–30 April 1844],” p. 1747-1749, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed July 23, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-e-1-1-july-1843-30-april-1844/119.

[4] Newel Knight, Autobiography and Journal, 1846, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

How Do You Get Priesthood Power?

The Example of Emma Hale Smith Can Help
Artwork by Julie Rogers

Recently a living prophet, Russell M. Nelson, declared something that has always been true. Joseph Smith taught it.

“Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book,” p. [38], The Joseph Smith Papers
“Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book,” p. [58], The Joseph Smith Papers
Other prophets have taught it recently. 

But it hasn’t always been believed by some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“The heavens are just as open to women who are endowed with God’s power flowing from their priesthood covenants as they are to men who bear the priesthood,” President Nelson said. 

He explained that “accessing the power of God in your life requires the same things that the Lord instructed Emma and each of you to do.” 

I do not like it when lesson manuals or teachers try too hard to liken the scriptures to us or prescribe the gospel as if one size fits all. But I like it a lot when prophets declare the truth and invite us to seek and receive revelation to know how to apply the truth to our circumstances. I loved hearing President Nelson invite us to “study prayerfully section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants and discover what the Holy Ghost will teach you.”

This post is my way of sustaining President Nelson’s invitation. It’s designed to provide backstory to D&C 25 and some orientation to principles of interpreting the scriptures.

Start with them there then

In the technical terms of scriptural hermeneutics or interpretation,  start with exegesis (ex-a-gee-sis). In other words, start by working to understand what a revelation meant to its original recipient(s)–to them there then. Don’t assume what it meant. Discover what it meant. 

Then, in hermeneutical terms, do eisegesis (ice-a-gee-sis)–determine what the revelation means to you here now. President Nelson taught this way when he invited us to “study prayerfully section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants and discover what the Holy Ghost will teach you.” 

I hope this post helps someone discern how to act here and now on what the Lord told Emma there and then. There was Harmony, Pennsylvania, a settlement on the Susequhanna River where Emma was born in the summer of 1804. Then was twenty-six years later, July 1830, when the Lord gave the revelation. 

In order to come as close as possible to understanding the revelation as Emma did, try to pretend that then is now and you are her.

Three years ago you married Joseph against your parents’ wishes

Then you watched Joseph translate the Book of Mormon. In the midst of that you gave birth to a son who lived less than an hour, and you barely survived weeks of infection. Then, just three months ago, Joseph restored the Savior’s church. 

Your parents raised you with middle class aspirations. They worried that by marrying Joseph you were opting for poverty and infamy. Their worries were well founded. Right after your marriage you moved in with Joseph’s parents, then about a year later you moved in with yours. They offered you and Joseph a small farm and a smaller home, allowing payment over time. Only the generous help of friends enabled you and Joseph to make the payments. You have had to depend on others financially. You worry about that.   

One month ago, you were baptized near Colesville, New York as a group of angry neighbors objected. Before you could be confirmed, the raging crowd drove you and other saints into the Knight family’s home for refuge. Then a constable arrested Joseph for preaching the Book of Mormon. For the next few days you waited at your sister’s home, praying and “awaiting with much anxiety the issue of those ungodly proceedings.” You felt your “very heart strings would be broken with grief” as Joseph is tried and acquitted in two counties, spat on, insulted, and mocked.  

Finally you and Joseph arrive safely at home. There the Lord gives a revelation that makes you more worried. Married life thus far had been tumultuous, and you’re understandably concerned about your family’s financial future and safety. Then the Lord tells your husband: 

 “Thou shalt devote all they service in Zion; and in this thou shalt have strength. Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days. And in temporal labors thou shalt not have strength, for this is not they calling. Attend to thy calling and thou shalt have wherewith to magnify thine office” (D&C 24:7-9). 

So there you go. The Lord essentially guaranteed you and Joseph a modest living that depended on the faithfulness of the saints. If the saints will support you, there will be enough to enable Joseph to devote his life to the saints. Other young wives in your time and place are aspiring to secure financial futures, but all the revelation foreshadows for you is a life of hardship with a husband who belongs to the church. You know him well enough to have no doubt that he will devote himself to Zion. Will you have faith enough to face that future? The Lord thinks so. He knows you well. He gives the next revelation directly to you. It comes through Joseph but the Lord speaks to you and shows that he knows your hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations. 

It has a more affectionate tone than most, but it is straightforward

The earliest manuscript of the revelation begins more intimately than the formal, published version. “Revelation, July 1830–C [D&C 25],” p. 34, The Joseph Smith Papers
“Emma my daughter in Zion,” the Lord says, “A Revelation I give unto you concerning my will  Behold thy sins are for given thee & thou art an Elect Lady whom I have called.” 

The first promise the Lord makes to Emma is that he will preserve her life. It’s a conditional promise based on whether she chooses to be faithful and virtuous. It was no hollow promise. She had barely survived childbirth. She knew women who hadn’t survived. And soon she would be expecting twins, increasingly the possibility of complications and death. Though it might not even register with readers now, the Lord’s promise of life would have been precious to Emma. So would His promise that she would “receive an inheritance in Zion.” It would have meant the world to her, since forsaking the world was the price she was willing to pay for that promise. Like all early saints, Emma was counter cultural in that respect.

“Murmur not,” the Lord commands Emma, “because of the things which thou hast not seen.” It’s commonly assumed that this clause refers to the Book of Mormon plates, but there is no reason to rule out other possibilities. Emma may have seen the plates. When she was asked if she saw them or not she didn’t answer directly. She testified that she handled them through a cloth. She didn’t say she never saw them. Besides, there were other things she may have longed to see but didn’t: visions, angels, marvelous translation. 

Emma was among the first to receive a calling in the restored Church of Jesus Christ

Part of her calling, the Lord said, was to support Joseph in his: comfort him, go with him, and scribe for him. But Emma’s calling also included being ordained to preach–to expound scripture and to exhort the saints by the power of the Holy Ghost. There was a lot for Emma to be afraid of in that list of assignments. 

First, it sounded like Joseph would be like the rope in a tug-o-war between the Lord and Emma: “The office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband . . . ” The Lord was asking her to share Joseph with Him and the saints, and to make Joseph better at serving them by strengthening him. Emma could comfort and console Joseph so he could renewed for the burdens the Lord and the saints would place on him. 

And “go with him at the time of his going,” the Lord told Emma. That’s another line that is easy to miss when we read. To her, however, it may have been the revelation’s most demanding clause. Expecting twins, she boarded a sleigh near her parents’ home that winter and headed west with Joseph. She went with Joseph in every sense–to comfort and console, to expound and exhort, to compile hymns, to inherit Zion–and that meant that she never saw her parents again.   

The Lord follows Emma’s heavy list of callings by telling her how He’ll make her equal to them: He promises to give her the Holy Ghost, knowledge, and enough financial support. Barely. She’ll have to “lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better” to do what she’s been called to do and become what she’s been ordained to be, and to inherit Zion. Emma could see where it all led. She would have to starve her telestial aspirations and feed her celestial ones. 

This revelation helps us see Emma’s conflicted complexity as the Lord did. Since she was human like us, there was a constant civil war inside her. The Lord saw that she was meek but could be proud. She wanted to complain about what she hadn’t seen at the same time she trusted incredibly in her husband’s revelations. She coveted the things of this world but longed for the things of a better world. She was afraid of the unknown and willing to go and do what the Lord commanded her. 

My favorite thing about Emma’s revelation is how capable the Lord reveals she is

She’s full of potential. His high expectations are frightening to her. Can she possibly exercise that much faith? Chart a course that’s so counter to her culture? Expound? Exhort? Select sacred hymns? Comfort? Console? Shun pride? Maintain meekness? Delight in the glory her husband receives? Keep God’s commands continually? Cleave to her covenants? 

She wanted to. She wondered and worried whether she could. She let the revelation orient her life. She selected sacred hymns for the saints. She expounded scripture by the Holy Ghost. The Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book is full of her exhortations. 

Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book

She comforted. She consoled. In 1842, when Joseph was evading arrest for unjust charges, Emma may have remembered when the constable came for him twelve years earlier. She had been consoling him ever since. She wasn’t about to stop now. She went to Joseph in his hiding place. “Again she is here,” he said about that visit and all the earlier consoling times, “even in the seventh trouble—undaunted, firm, and unwavering—unchangeable, affectionate Emma!”

“Journal, December 1841–December 1842,” p. 164, The Joseph Smith Papers
In September 1843 Joseph sealed on Emma’s head the “crown of righteousness” the Lord promised in Section 25

Then, just days before his death in 1844, Joseph invited Emma to write her own blessing. She thought of Section 25 and penned her hopes that she would be able to obey its commands and receive its promised blessings. (Carol Madsen told that story best)

Emma clung to her covenants through Abrahamic tests. She could have, and perhaps sometimes did, consider herself in competition with the Lord and the saints for Joseph’s time and attention. The Lord assured her, however, that she was His highly favored daughter. He expected more of her than she may have thought she could give. I believe He will be true to His promise to give her all she ultimately wanted.

PS

That last sentence is not just wishful thinking. It’s based on the revealed terms and conditions of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage and knowing whether or not Emma made that covenant and abided by its terms. Subscribe if you want to be notified when I post the story of what I know about that and how.